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How You Can Train Athletes with Minimal Technology

24 July 2019Ben Cartwright

Imagine a world where instead of swiping right on a dating app, you initiated a conversation with someone you found attractive at the supermarket.
Or a world where instead of sending a passive aggressive text, you confronted someone face-to-face.
Or a world where instead of looking down at your phone, you walked with your head up and admired your surroundings.
Or a world where instead of relying on Facebook to remind you of a friend’s birthday, you used the hippocampus in your brain to remember it.
Or a world where instead of staring at data and charts, you made eye contact with your athletes and asked them how their day is going.
Maybe I’m an old soul, but I miss the days of when glowing screens didn’t run our lives.
If you’re an avid reader of this blog, you’re either a sport scientist, soccer coach, or strength and conditioning coach who has dabbled in the use of technology, or who uses it full-time.
But before I dive in, I’m going to a take a wild guess you chose this career path to help human beings.
To coach.
To teach.
To connect.
To communicate.
To that end, technology has its way of making these things wane if we aren’t cognizant or aware.

And in the sports world, athletes are becoming numbers, data, equations, rankings, avatars, and so much more.
More flabbergasting to all of this, athletes are humans just like yourself, who want to be heard, supported and encouraged through their sport and life pursuits.
They need conversation.
They need active listening.
They need actionable solutions.
They need critical thinking.
They need creativity.
They need sweaty high fives.
They need hugs.
They need good old-fashion coaching.

Now before all of the science guys come at me, hear me out: this article is not to poo-poo on sport technology.
If I had $10,000 of cash collecting cobwebs in my closet, I would buy GPS units with the bat of an eyelash.
For one, I see value in using technology as ammunition against coaches, and to ensure they’re not idiots and don’t program endless sprints the day after a game as punishment.
I see technology as a valuable load monitoring tool to tweak strength sessions and volume for the week.
I see it as helpful information to make sure players who play less have the chance to work out harder during a micro-cycle and not get deconditioned.

I see it as a way to elicit a high intensity conditioning effect during my anaerobic, speed endurance sessions and to call players out if they’re not going hard enough.
I see it as an insight into my players’ top speeds, mileage coverage, change of directions, eccentric loading statistics, souls and so much more.
Okay, let’s shift gears for a second.
As much as technology in sport has helped players stay healthy and improve their performance on the pitch, I’d argue if you don’t have access to it, you can still help them immensely.
Look. I’m an American youth soccer strength and conditioning coach in the private sector, and after the seven years I’ve been at this, I’ve had no ACL injuries, no hamstring strains, and a roster of athletes continue to D1, D2, D3 and into professional programs. Better yet, they’ve become amazing humans with fulfilling careers and lives when their soccer careers came to an inevitable end.
I guess I’m doing okay for using printed paper and ripped binders as programs:

Or, who uses an obsolete vertical jump mat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN6mwaUWn8M

Or, who uses, not hi-tech machines, but the burly lacrosse athletes as added chaos for my soccer players:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9zf9RFV10k

Yeah. I don’t use any technology. I don’t have the privilege to use it. Admittedly, the furthest I’ve gotten as a soccer performance coach is using heart rate monitors.

It’s nothing grandiose.
It’s nothing that will shout, “look at me! I have fancy gadgets!”
It’s nothing that will impress people on Twitter.
It’s nothing that will get clicks and followers.
It’s nothing that will make reality tv.

It’s simple.
Just like a handful of other private sector performance facilities, we are a successful business that has flourished for almost two decades at the youth, academy, college, and professional levels for both lacrosse and soccer athletes.
And with minimal technology, we’ve made one hell of an impact.
So how do you train athletes with minimal technology?
Let’s do this:
1. Use time-based or Ratings of Perceived Exertion methods.
Without GPS trackers, how do we know our players are receiving a desired conditioning effect?
Enter time-based training and Ratings of Perceived Exertion.
For the sake of brevity, here’s a nice breakdown of conditioning under a time-based model:
- Maximal Speed Endurance: 30-40 seconds of work, 1:5 work-to-rest
- Maximal Repeated Sprint Ability: <10 second of work, 1:5 work-to-rest
- High Intensity Aerobic: 1-4 minutes of work, 1:1 work-to-rest
- Maximal Speed: <10 second, 1:10 work-to-rest
If you find that athletes are not eliciting these conditioning effects under these time standards, it may be best to move to Ratings of Perceived Exertion, where they rate their feeling of intensity on a scale of 1-10:

Of course, this is a tougher one because athletes might not always be telling the truth. But given you’re a professional who instills hard work and autonomy in your players, they will be honest when it comes to RPE.
Better yet, when they’re saying their RPE out loud after a conditioning run in front of their teammates, they feel much more held accountable. I highly recommend trying this.
Okay, story time.
This summer, I had all of my athletes work up to 9/10 on the RPE scale for a continuous 50-yard shuttle run, and when one athlete finished I asked their score and they said, “9/10.” However, they weren’t out of breath, able to hold a conversation, and were cracking jokes. The best part? One her teammates called her out and said, “no! You’re a 4 at most!”
So what happened the next go around? The girl who lied then pushed herself because her teammates took notice and held her accountable.
When using RPE, I suggest you have everyone announce their personal rating because when the rest of the group is listening, there’s no hiding.
I’d be remiss not to mention there’s tremendous value in competing, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FSdR95qOcA

Me: “How many minutes did you play this weekend?”
Athlete: “80 minutes.”

Me: “How do you feel today?”
Athlete: “Extremely sore.”
Me: “Okay, then you should stay away from the eccentric single leg deadlifts and change of direction in a few days.”
Athlete and I high five.
To give you another example with a totally different athlete, here you go:
Me: “How many minutes did you play this weekend?”
Athletes: “80 minutes.”
Me: “How do you feel today?”
Athlete: “Not sore. Ready to lift.”
I then dug deeper in that conversation to figure out why she wasn’t sore after 80 minutes of playing. They played an easy opponent, won 5-0, and played possession the majority of the match. Chances are, this athlete did not change direction, reach maximal speed, or cover that much mileage this match since the style of play was very composed and nonchalant.
So what did we do two days after the game?
Deadlifting, pull-upping, lunging, single leg squatting, and small-sided playing.
But, what about lying about soreness? Ah, yes. Good one!
Again, it’s all about observing and knowing your athletes. If they’re looking lethargic in the gym, form is declining on strength lifts, their focus is off, then something may be whacky.
Always communicate and observe. That’s what coaches are meant to do.

That’s all that needs to go down. When in doubt, communicate with questions that showcase how the athlete is feeling mentally and physiologically. Also, observe their body language, exercise technique, and demeanor.
Taking the conversation beyond athlete-to-coach, it’s critical to communicate with team coaches as well. Some of the best coaches I have worked with on load monitoring and strength and conditioning training are the ones who blast out their schedules, tournaments, ID camps and practice sessions to me, and update me by the hour of what is going on.
You bet I’m tweaking my programs weekly and hourly.

Tournament on the weekend? Monday will be yoga and mobility.
No games for two weeks? We are using this in-season “window of opportunity” to speed train, lift heavier load (80-90% 2-3 sets, 1-5 reps), and add in more eccentric work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhMNu5qCNUw

Last night’s practice was 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 drills on a large pitch? The gym session the next day will be only sub-maximal strength with nice, graceful deadlift pulls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnf-ros3VOM

This is where soccer specific knowledge of the game from the performance specialist comes into play. Knowing what drills produce what physiological effects is paramount to monitoring load and tweaking your gym programs.
Have common sense.
But moreover, think deeply about the game, and simply about gym training.
3. Change behavior with nutrition.
Newsflash: you can toss all your meal plans in the trash.
Are you handing your players food measurements, portion sizes, macros, and calories on Excel sheets and graphs and pie charts?
Well, aren’t you cute!
Of course, it is wise to educate them and break down the numbers, but nutrition needs to be an ongoing conversation, too.
The problem with nutrition nowadays is people know what’s wrong, yet still fail to execute a radical solution. We all know greens are better than fried food. We all know water is better than alcohol. We all know apples are better than potato chips. We all know 1,000 calories a day is not ideal for a soccer athlete.
No amount of hypothalamus brain tests are going to solve whether your athletes love or hate themselves, and tie what they eat to these deep emotions.
Here are some tips for behavior change:
- Provide your players with samples of healthy snacks
- Eat in front of them (lead by example).
- Ask them, “what foods bring you to life?”
- Ask them, “what foods bog you down?”
- Ask them, “are you eating out of love or hate for yourself?”
- Really have them get clear on the above questions.
4. Write down and progress load.
On the first day of off-season here, my athletes get their programs in a thick binder.

“This looks like an encyclopedia!” they exclaim with smiles on their faces.
Receiving their programs is like getting a gift during the holidays: not only is it infused with novelty, written with care, but it is filled with love and customized movement prep to fit what they need extra help with:

Too, in order for athletes to progress load on their own terms, they need their own pen and program.
If an athlete has to do 3 sets at 8 reps for an exercise, and by the 8th rep they feel they can do a several more (Reps in Reserve Method), I always tell them to go up 5-10 pounds.
If they feel on that 8th rep they only could squeak out only one more, then they may be at a great weight that allows them to do good form, but it is still a grind.
There’s power in writing down load each week. It allows athlete to be autonomous in their progress and hold themselves accountable with their feats of strength.

5. Use your eyes to look for imbalances.
There’s a ton of high-tech machines floating around the sport science space that tell us if our athletes have asymmetries, weaknesses, faulty biomechanics, excessive knee valgus, or a left earlobe smaller than the other. And many of them are tremendously accurate.
But again, not all of us are privileged to have these all-embellishing toys, so what do we do? Use our eyes.
It’s not hard to see excessive knee valgus that makes you want to bang your head against a wall.
In fact, if an athlete is performing a movement and I’m cringing even just an itty bit looking at form, something needs to be fixed. And you as the professional has to be able to catch this.
As strength coach Michael Boyle says, if it looks like sh*t, it probably is.
To that end, if I see an athlete shifting their hips to the right when coming up from a squat, you bet I’m adding in extra unilateral glute medius work to their program:

If I see an athlete not grooving hip mobility enough during a lateral squat, you bet I’m adding in the slideboard and increasing their lever arm by having them extend their arms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEyMnsHgdV8

If I see an athlete collapsing their posture in athletic stance, you bet I’m adding in Chaos Ball Hugs to hone in on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDi1VIvG0MU

Or, if hip shifting and favoring of one side is apparent, I may switch completely from bilateral to unilateral movement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVjXGHVAoUo

Erica Suter is a soccer strength and conditioning expert in Baltimore, Maryland and has been working with youth soccer players across the world for over seven years. She works as a full-time strength coach at JDyer Strength and Conditioning, where she designs in-season, off-season and pre-season programs for soccer players in Maryland. In addition to being a tenacious and passionate in person coach to hundreds of athletes, she consults with youth coaches, clubs and players worldwide in the realms of strength and conditioning, load monitoring, and mental skills training. She is a published writer and the author of the Total Youth Soccer Fitness Program, which has sold copies to soccer coaches in over 20 different countries across the world.
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“Coach.” I turned around to face one of my newest soccer players behind me, standing awkwardly with both hands on her left hip. “My hip has been hurting since my game on Sunday.”

We ran through a brief assessment. I asked about the game, what happened, and what she had done the previous week that may have triggered this flare-up.

“There was nothing. It just started hurting after the match,” she said. “But it’s funny - now my ankle, knee, and my hip on my left side hurt!”

She was new to our gym, and we couldn’t run individual assessments on players who came for team training, so we had never addressed previous issues, nor had the coach said anything. We ran through her injury history quickly.

She looked shocked, but we finished our assessment and I assigned her a set of five exercises to be completed each morning and each evening for a total of five minutes per day for one week.

One week later, she came back to team training, looking even more stunned. “Coach,” she said this time, hands open in front of her this time. “I feel so much better!”

————

The human body is an absolute master of adaption. This means that, when something in the body is amiss, it can easily overcompensate for this… for a short time. If issues carry on for any length of time, they may take a toll on the body, especially in high-impact, high-volume, and contact sports like football.

In my role as a Return-To-Play specialist, I have seen all kinds of injuries - contact/non-contact, neurological, severe, acute, chronic, joint problems, bone breaks, tendonitis and -osis, biomechanical issues out the wazoo…

But it all comes down to this: instead of focusing on rehab and damage control when athletes are injured, we need to get better at foreseeing and correcting problems before they can even crop up.

In football, there are three main contributing areas that require respect and extra awareness from coaches and athletes: feet/ankles, knees, and hips.

Let’s go!

1) Your feet matter… a lot!

Excuse me for geeking out, but our feet and ankles are pretty AWESOME.

We run with them, we kick with them, we change directions with them, jump with them, land on them, pivot on them. They absorb force and then re-generate it at wicked speeds against the ground.

But what happens to our bodies when our feet don’t function as optimally as they should, especially because we rely on them so much? What’s really happening when we cannot properly absorb and create force?

Pronation vs. Neutral vs. Supination
As compensatory masters, sometimes our feet and ankles overwork themselves in order to make up for something else in the body. This leads to vulnerability and the possibility of more serious problems.

One common issue I see is in the feet themselves, due to a lack of ankle mobility. The athlete begins to strike the ground while walking or running on the outside or inside of the foot, instead of the center of his or her mid-foot. This is called Pronation (in) or Supination (out).

Ultimately, the foot compensating one way or the other can lead to additional problems, such as shin splints, achilles discomfort, and unspecific knee or back pain. So how do we ensure that our feet remain neutral?

Barefoot training is a great tool, especially during single-leg and balance exercises. Strengthening the feet and gaining proprioception (or awareness) in the ankles is also vital.

Here is one of my favourite exercises for warding off an uncanny foot strike:

https://youtu.be/fnPbFTcW4OY

Poor Ankle Mobility & Stability
This is a touchy subject for many coaches, because it’s riddled with misconception and Instagram fads.

Should you use a BOSU Ball? Do we need to train on a balance pad? Must we test single-leg jump height? Should you single-leg jump 400 meters? Does stretching help?

The quick answer to all of these things is “um… no”.

Ankle training is actually more simple than we often make it out to be. Because, in football, we never encounter uneven or wobbly surfaces like the BOSU or pads on the actual pitch, those exercises can be left in Rehab Phase 1 at the PT’s office.

Generally speaking, athletes who can successfully upkeep those movements with quality and without pain have great ankle mobility and stability… and I didn’t have to buy a BOSU!

2) It could be your knees… but is it really?

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard the phrase “I have bad knees!” uttered begrudgingly more than once.

You’ve also probably noticed the incredible rate of knee injuries in the sport of football, and how ACLs, MCLs, and Meniscus issues tend to come suddenly, unsuspected, and indiscriminately. A quick Google search will clue you in to the ridiculously high rate of ACL injuries in this sport on a regular, non-contact basis.

So what can we do?

As is so often the case, “where it hurts is likely not where the problem is”.

Although I promised to keep this article as lively, non-scientific and un-boring as possible, research and practice have begun to inform us of some possible solutions to this Knee Injury Crisis in football. Accordingly, I recommend all football players add these moves to their (p)rehab repertoire:

Your stability matters = single-leg squat, single-leg jumps and landings, skater jumps (the ankle protocol will help you here!)
Learn to decelerate quickly = literally! Practice decelerating from different speeds and directions of running
Game-specific running translates = in training, run forward with the head and torso looking another direction
Strong hamstrings win the long game = hamstring curl, glute bridges, deadlift/RDLs, and hip thrusts

If the musical queen of football Shakira said it, then it’s true, right?

Think of your hips and glutes as your engine. Although your legs function as your wheels, motion starts at and is largely controlled by your pelvis. The hips also connect your lower body to upper body, which, as you could guess, is a pretty important job for any type of moving!

Here’s the thing: hips are foundational and need a lot of upkeep.

Your hips keep your knees and lower back safe, among other things. Think of them as a buffer for absorbing and generating force toward your powerful movements and as essential for speed.

If you lack the ability to recruit your hips of to rotate internally and externally, for example, that can impact the speed of your sprint or heigh or your jump, how you push off the ground with every step, and your ability to change direction efficiently and in less steps.

Additionally, poor hip mobility and glute strength will reduce the strength and efficiency of your lateral movements. Ever had your knees dive inward on a squat, sprint, or side-step? Ever taken an extra second to change directions because your knee wobbled? GLUTES!

As your glutes are made up of a heap of rotational muscles that essentially control your ability to move side-to-side and open and close your legs, you owe it to your pelvis to keep it in check.

To keep your hip and glute health up to speed, incorporating the previously listed exercises will help - especially glute bridges, RDLs, deadlifts, and hip thrusts - but lateral lunges, lateral jumping, and abduction/adduction exercises can also maintain your pelvis’ integrity and help you get the most performance benefits from your hips.

Here’s one exercise I use for my athletes in their warm-up, especially before training and games:

Benefits of Barefoot Training for Soccer Players

08 November 2018Ben Cartwright

This blog is the second guest blog from Erica Suter. Erica discusses why she is an advocate of barefoot training and where she got the idea from.

“Why are you wearing those?” a Brazilian kid asked me before we played pick-up soccer in the streets.
“Soccer shoes,” I replied with conviction.
The look he gave me was similar to someone being attacked by a herd of zombies: flabbergasted. Shocked. Confused. It was one of those ‘what-the-heck’ moments on his end. Looking back, I’m sure he thought I was some entitled, spoiled American who was too good for barefoot shenanigans.

Alas, what I was wearing around my feet was foreign to him. In his town, Rio de Janeiro, they grew up playing soccer one way: barefoot.
So after seeing his lack of footwear, I removed my soccer shoes and assimilated myself into the Brazilian culture. Even though I felt naked and vulnerable, I also felt liberated and free.
For the year I lived in Brazil and coached kids, I immersed myself in their barefoot soccer ways. At first it was uncomfortable and totally out of my norm, but eventually, I fell in love with it.

To that end, my curiosity about barefoot soccer was piqued from the Brazilian people. Beyond it just being a cultural norm, I asked myself, ‘what are its benefits?’ After all, there had to be some physiological gain from removing my soccer boots and allowing my feet room to breathe. Of course, as a soccer performance coach and nerd, I’m always asking myself if there’s a functional benefit to anything I do.
Without further ado, here are the benefits of barefoot training after extensive research in Brazil as well as practical experience with my athletes for seven years:
1. Strengthens the foot.
This much I know: the foot is complex. Made up of 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments, the foot needs to activation to continue to function and grow.
And sometimes, wearing shoes or insoles that support the foot too much can hinder the strengthening process, and put our feet to sleep.
As an example, try deadlifting heavy with shoes, then barefoot. You might find that deadlifting barefoot will provide you with more balance, stability, and ability to push your heels into the ground with confidence.
Additionally, you know how we always say, “activate the glutes” to people who sit at a desk all day? The same applies to the foot. Activate the muscles in the foot by walking around without shoes, and the results will be nothing short of amazing.
2. Improves adaptability.
Last I looked, soccer is a game that requires a tremendous amount of adaptability. With different surfaces, styles of play, weather conditions, and opponent capabilities, soccer athletes must be able to adapt to any scenario.
This is when barefoot training becomes so powerful: it forces athletes to develop their touch, think quicker in high pressure scenarios, and feel the sensory input from different playing surfaces. With that said, being exposed to a variety of training environments evades athletes from being crippled by the law of diminishing returns. Athletes, therefore, must be exposed to adaptation in order to grow.
3. Increases training enjoyment
Now, I don’t have a plethora of peer-reviewed studies to back this up, but with the hundreds of youth athletes I’ve worked with, not one has protested barefoot training. Rather, all my youth athletes look forward to it, and ask, “coach Erica, can we take off our shoes for training today?”
Do you really think I’m going to say, no?
HAHAHA.
There’s something magical about being shoeless that turns training into a fun, carefree experience for youth athletes. I’d also argue that adult athletes would enjoy the same. If you don’t believe me, give barefoot training a whirl and just watch everyone’s faces light up with excitement and joy.
Before I conclude, some things to keep in mind with barefoot training:
- Gradually ease into it when it comes to playing barefoot soccer. I would say once a week is a great start to see how everyone does, and feel that out for a few months. Get feedback, especially in terms of how athletes are feeling.
- Barefoot soccer in a small-sided game setting is more about inspiring athletes to play quick one and two touch soccer, with a ton of movement off the ball for a better conditioning effect. It is not meant for going all out into tackles and hurting one another, so let your players know this before you start a barefoot game.
- Initially, avoid plyometric exercises barefoot, especially if the muscles in the foot aren’t strong enough to absorb force.
- Start with strength and balance movements barefoot first for at least 10-12 weeks, then incorporate jump progressions gradually.
Here are a few strength and balance drills to try:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7CTaIanLFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X64zagVuapQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbdQrrm3W18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7u7HXE5nU&t=8s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib2R4DgmFrI
Erica Suter is a certified strength and conditioning coach, soccer trainer, and soccer performance blogger who has worked with soccer athletes for over six years in the realms of technical training and physical fitness. She is currently a strength coach at JDyer Strength and Conditioning, and also runs her own soccer performance training business in Baltimore, MD. Her wheelhouse is youth soccer players ages 10-18, and has worked with over 1,000 players across the state of Maryland in-person as well as worldwide through online consulting.

Factors of in-season strength training:

This weeks blog is written by Lew Coldham, Academy Strength & Conditioning coach at West Ham. Lew has written about 4 factors to consider when planning strength training in-season.

Here I present four factors which I believe are key to the successful planning and delivery of in-season strength training for youth players to maximise physical performance within the football environment.

1. Understand the environment

The first factor to consider is that we must fully understand and even embrace the environment that we work in as practitioners. The football environment is one of constant fluctuations in training and match load, heavily influenced by decision-making processes such as players playing up and down age groups, tournament match play opportunities, as well as alterations in match and training schedules.

The strength programme must be adjustable in accordance with the varied wellbeing of the players, as well as the evolving schedule, in order to bring about physical improvement while allowing players to focus on their primary sporting practice. Embracing the uncertainty of the environment that we work in allows us to develop highly adaptive skill sets, methods of management and development, as well as finding ways to enhance the players potential for success.

2. Minimal Effective Dose

Whether we admit it or not, the common protocols and typical weekly templates we use are traditionally adopted from strength-training-determined sports such as weightlifting, powerlifting and bodybuilding. These common prescriptions have not changed much since the creation of such protocols and is dictated by the fact that the gym IS their sport.

If we think about the football environment, the focus is on the performance of football training (in its various forms) and match play. The footballer has many other competing demands and performs multiple hours of physical training, on and off the pitch, to prepare them for the vast array of skills and qualities required. The overall volume of work as well the general guidelines regarding intensity, volume etc. need to be adapted based on their sporting requirements and individual needs.

From my experience, young players who are new to strength training can still enhance physical output through strength training in as little as one 30-minute session per week. This is largely due to the adaptability of their bodies, as well as how potent the new stimulus is as a stressor. Why use 5 sets of 5 when 2-3 sets will still produce improvements in near untrained individuals due to the relative potency of the new stimulus; once these low volumes of work cease to produce improvements then more may be required.

3. Embrace submaximal Loading

All notable resources regarding the pursuit of maximal strength and its many benefits advise that the best parameters of maximal strength include loading of 8o-85% of 1RM and above. While this is true, these recommendations are in their origin taken from strength-determined sports and usually for well-trained populations.

I would advise that when working with youth players that the use of submaximal lifting strategies e.g. 50-80% of 1RM are the mainstay of the program as they can elicit improvements in strength qualities, but also can be managed more easily within an in-season plan. For the young player these intensities can be reduced even further depending on their age, maturation and training level as well as allow a diverse range of movements to be trained.

Overall the primary objective of strength training methods is to develop strength qualities in the players without impeding too greatly on the performance of their specific sports training. Significant improvements from submaximal methods can be achieved before more maximal forms of lifting are even required. The mainstays of my programs are sub-maximal loads performed with explosive concentric phases and through compensatory acceleration training (CAT) to produce high outputs with relatively low loads (40-80%). This has repeatedly produced increases in strength with players without the need to load the body greater than 80% of 1RM.

4. Movement Variability

One of the primary goals of developing physical ability and robustness of players should be on creating a diverse range of movement experiences and competencies that they can tolerate and perform successfully. Simply getting players to lift resistance implements in a select few movements may be a short-sighted view of movement preparation and by allowing a more diverse and varied program, especially for young players, we may be able to create a more physically robust athlete for the field of play.

By looking at the number of types of training stimulus and number of movement tasks on your players’ plans, you should be able to see the diversity within your own framework. For example, if one player between the ages of 12-18 has experienced 40 different exercises within their strength program, and another has experienced 80 different exercises within this same time frame, the second player may have had greater opportunity to develop the necessary physical abilities for a wider range of skills and proficiencies.

Closing Thoughts

These four factors I believe are crucial in managing the strength programme for youth footballers to successfully develop athleticism, while accounting for the diverse needs of players in a constantly fluctuating environment.

Lew Coldham is an accredited strength & conditioning coach who graduated from UCLAN university currently working as academy strength & conditioning coach with West Ham United FC. His main area of expertise are on the topic of movement and strength development for youth athletes.

Dispelling the myths surrounding youth resistance training

17 October 2018Ben Cartwright

This weeks blog comes from Joshua Dragone. Josh is a member of our Football Fitness Online Community & is a performance coach working with many players. Josh has written a blog to dispel the myths surrounding youth resistance training.

Youth resistance training come a long way in recent years and there is now compelling evidence to support strength training amongst youths.

However, having worked in youth sport I often noticed that the myths surrounding youth resistance training are still out there.

This post will identify a number of questions/myths that I have received during my time working with youth athletes.

Myth #1: Strength training will stunt the growth and cause injury to children

This is always one of the first questions I get asked and tends to be based on opinion or what’s been heard. In fact, strength training actually inflicts less compressive force on the joints compared to other sports involving running and jumping. Strength training has been shown to prevent injuries to bones and growth plates by strengthening bones, ligaments and tendons. Also there have been a number of studies that show injuries associated with strength training are less common than injuries occurred when playing sports such as football, rugby, basketball or gymnastics.

See what your body can go through in these sports below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7GWGHTkMlM

Myth #2: Strength training is unsafe for children

This misconception comes from extremely poor and misinterpreted data from the 1960s and 70s and has had a serious negative impact on youth strength training since.

I also believe that there is a misconception as to what S&C in youths looks like most people tend to think that strength training has to mean lifting extremely heavy weight. However, this isn’t the case, particularly for youth programmes. Training with bodyweight or light free weights with proper lifting technique can provide a great, safe, effective foundation of strength.

Myth #3: Strength training is only for young athletes

It’s a common one I hear in that ‘oh, my son/daughter isn’t that serious about the sport just yet so there is no need for strength training’ Youth strength training is highly beneficial for developing physical qualities such as strength, power, speed etc. which can help kids be involved in life long sport. Even though there is a huge amount of evidence around the physical development of adolescence, having worked with youth athletes for a number of years there are also huge psycho-social benefits. Adolescence don’t just benefit from getting bigger and stronger but also gain improvements in their self-confidence, self awareness, develop social skills to name a few.

As coaches when we hear these common myths it can be very frustrating as the time and effort that has been put in can often be disregarded. However, these situations can be an ideal time for coaches to educate parents, players and coaches on the potential benefits of resistance training whether it be via workshops for parents or even just a conversation.

Times are slowly changing in my opinion and parents, teachers, coaches are beginning to recognize the potential physical and psychosocial benefits that resistance training bring.

Regular participation in a S&C programme is a perfectly safe and an enjoyable type of training for adolescents. As long as training is focused on development technical competency and age-appropriate guideline are met and followed by qualified coaches.

Josh is a 24-year-old strength and conditioning coach with a specific interest in youth athletic development. He graduated from the University of South Wales and is currently studying a Masters in Strength and Conditioning at Cardiff Metropolitan University. He is currently the lead S&C coach at Swansea Tennis Academy and previously worked at Cardiff City FC, Aberystwyth Town FC and Cardiff Devils Ice Hockey Juniors.